Threat of sub-zero temperatures leads courses to call Wednesday inspections

Leicester and Hexham have called inspections on Wednesday morning ahead of their jumps meetings as cold weather begins to set in across Britain.

The courses are among those preparing for sub-zero temperatures in the coming days, which could also affect racing at Doncaster and Cheltenham on Saturday.

Both inspections will take place at 8am, with Leicester deploying frost sheets to combat the cold due to temperatures dropping to -3C overnight into Wednesday.

"We're very hopeful and we haven't had a frost this morning," clerk of the course James Stevenson said.

"We've got all our shaded areas covered and about three-quarters of a mile of frost sheets put in place. However, we just got this forecast tomorrow morning of about -3C and that's our concern.

"This is the first frost of the season for us and we don't normally have a problem. This is the first time we've had any tricky weather, but fingers crossed. I think there will be more problems at the end of the week."

Frost sheets have also been used at Newcastle before its Thursday jumps card, with forecasts at the track warning of frost and possibly snow on Wednesday night.

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